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There are sounds it feels like you've known forever, sounds that have been in your ear so long, it's hard to believe they were ever new. One of those sounds is this: James Jamerson thumps a heartbeat on the bass. Robert White's guitar corkscrews out in reply. And the immortal David Ruffinsings, in a voice of sweetness shadowed by sorrow, "I've got sunshine on a cloudy day." Hard to believe that sound was ever new, but it was. Released four days before Christmas in 1964, "My Girl" by the Temptations reached the top of the pop charts in the first week of March -- 50 years ago this week. Maybe you remember hearing it during that portentous late winter...

Related "Malcolm X" Articles

There are sounds it feels like you've known forever, sounds that have been in your ear so long, it's hard to believe they were ever new. One of those sounds is this:
James Jamerson thumps a heartbeat on the bass. Robert White's guitar corkscrews out in...

Black History month is an important time to commemorate the accomplishments of blacks around the world; it is also a time to remember and address the unresolved issues in our society dealing with race.
Last year highlighted several issues which,...

Call it "One Winter in Baltimore."
For the second time, Center Stage has announced an extension of its brilliant production of "One Night in Miami…," the inventive play by Kemp Powers about the 1964 evening that Cassius Clay (just...

Before a word is spoken, the Center Stage production of "One Night in Miami," Kemp Powers' play about the aftermath of Cassius Clay's world heavyweight boxing victory on Feb. 25, 1964, delivers a potent jab to the chin.It comes from the sight of...

When he first heard that a white police officer had fatally shot a young black man near St. Louis last summer, the Rev. Jamal Bryant got a sick feeling in his stomach.
Then a friend sent video.
"Seeing Michael Brown's body on the ground, covered in...

On Feb. 25, 1964 in Miami Beach, Cassius Clay won the heavyweight boxing title in the seventh round — a technical knockout — defying the conventional wisdom that Sonny Liston would easily prevail in the ring.Clay did not go out on the town to celebrate,...

I have recently had several spirited conversations with an old friend from high school over the Israel and Hamas conflict and the larger questions surrounding Israeli settlements, the Palestinian Intifadas and a dual state solution. My friend, a...

Reginald L. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History and Culture director A. Skipp Sanders was wrong to bar civil rights pioneer Helena Hicks from entering the premises, and she was wrong about the civil rights movement and former Black Panther...

The commentary, "A necessary conversation" (Aug 17), by Loyola University Maryland assistant professor Karsonya Wise Whitehead, in which she claims that our nation needs to have "a serious conversation about race," is another...

I was listening to a local radio news program when I heard the anchor say that Dr. Maya Angelou had passed. To make sure the report was accurate, I called a friend, who knows her through a close friendship with Angelou's grandson. She confirmed what I was...

No offense to conventional hotels, but sometimes you just want to stay someplace a little different, a little avant-garde, someplace you'll be able to tell the grandkids about someday.
You know, someplace that, once you post a picture on Facebook, will...

Ralph Dawson Matthews Jr., a former managing editor of the Baltimore Afro-American who worked closely with Malcolm X in the early 1960s and once shared a house with a young Miles Davis, died April 3 at the Adelphi House assisted living facility in...

In the spring of 2008, as the prospect that America would elect its first black president became more and more likely, the organization that did as much as any to make that watershed possible had fallen on hard times. The National Association for the...

While I agree with parts of Jeffrey Ian Ross' recent commentary on gun violence, I do not agree with his conclusions about how to address it and live with it ("Ending mass shootings: It's not just about more or better laws," Sept. 22).
I...

Over the past 181 years, the bill of sale has turned a pale tan. The ink has faded from black to brown and includes elaborate flourishes that seem ill-suited to such a grim and ugly business.
On Feb. 25, 1832, the bill reads, a slave named William...

Half a century ago this Wednesday, as a bright sun climbed the sky above downtown Washington, Douglas B. Sands, then 29, stood a few hundred feet from the Lincoln Memorial and looked out over the National Mall in wonder.
It was 8:30 in the morning on...

There are monuments to leaders of the civil rights movement: the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Thurgood Marshall.
But many say there has never been recognition for the "regular people" who took up the cause, who marched on Washington...

Credited with reenergizing and modernizing the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization, NAACP president Benjamin Jealous announced Sunday he will step down from his position at the end of the year.
In a statement, Jealous said he wanted...

[Ed. note: No running diary this time. I was judging a Battle of the Bands for WPOC in Hanover aka doing my best Simon Cowell impression, so I didn't get home until 8:40 p.m. I watched a DVR-ed version. The obvious good news of the night is the auditiions...